After the completion of web site next big thing is to find a quality web host for displaying it on the web.
To select a good web host is the utmost important process. Here is a list of some of the most important things one should look for while selecting a quality web host.
First of all we should know what is web hosting?
A web host is a company, which is providing us with server space for our web site and includes all of the files associated with our web site. When our web address is typed into a browser, the web host displays our pages.
After knowing what is web hosting next important thing to look for is the price issue. We have an old saying “we get what we pay for” which is still true. There are many quality web hosts, which are reasonably priced, and we can expect to pay $20 – $50 per month for up to 50MB of space. It depends on the company and our specific needs and a plan picked by us.
Now the next important thing is there are several types of hosting available like free as well as paid now next thing to consider is whether to select free host or paid web hosting. One should know that an Ecommerce web site should never be hosted with a free hosting service. These services are highly unreliable and never care if our site goes down. They are mainly concerned with their advertisers and as long as their ads are up and running, for the most part, they will not care about our site or us.
In addition, it looks very unprofessional to host a site with free services and if we’ve decided to take the time to get our own web site design and our own domain name, than why to take risk by selecting a free host free service? It’s not a wise step.
In addition given below are some of the crucial things one should look for while selecting a web host: –
� Are they offering us fast connections?
� Are they providing us with a back-up system to protect our data in case of a power outage/ failure or shortage?
� Are they asking for an advance payment?
� Are they looking for long-term contracts?
� Is there is any set up fees?
� Is their customer support well enough? Test it.
� Are they providing free access to a secure server for order processing?
�Shopping cart software is provided or not in order to process our commands?
�Any online Web Site Manager is provided or not?
� An online support manual is provided them to us?
We can also ask for the references and can ask from some of their customers and their experiences will help us in selecting a right hosting company.
Some basic features to be look for while selecting a web host is as follows:
1) 24/7 reliable tech support
2) Our own domain name
3) 10GB of monthly transfer (traffic)
4) A minimum server space of 20MB – 50MB
5) True POP email accounts should be Unlimited
6) Email aliases should be Unlimited
7) Forwarding of Email
8) Unlimited auto responders
9) Our own unrestricted CGI-Bin
10) For secure transactions Access to SSL Encryption
11) My SQL Database
12) Perl
13) Password protection by ht access
14) Server Side Includes (SSI) support
15) Designing (and uploading to) our site using Netscape or other HTML editing software
16) For those utilizing FrontPage there should be Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions
17) Unlimited free access to our server via FTP/Telnet
18) Our log files should be Easy to access
19) Statistics on visits to our site
20) Referral Program
We must look at the entire picture prior to making our decision while selecting a web host. We may find hosts whose monthly charges are $5.00 – $15.00 host our site, but it is not guaranteed that they’ll provide excellent technical support for our web site.
A lower monthly payment, it is always attractive and appealing, but truly it will cost a lot because saving while sales is minimal as well as the support provided is not good enough to work a site properly
There are many web hosting companies online; but the mostly used and recommended is only one which is Host4Profit – Professional web hosting specifically designed for the Internet marketer.
So take the time look into the requirements and than select the web host which meets our needs and expectations fully.
